The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus, and particularly to an image forming apparatus used in a state of being connected to a charging apparatus.
Image forming apparatuses such as copying machines or multifunction machines in some cases are used by being connected to charging apparatuses. The charging apparatuses, sometimes referred to as coin vending machines, receive insertion of money, recognize amount of money inserted, collect charges in accordance with details of print jobs, then return remaining money.
If a user of such the image forming apparatus leaves the place while forgetting to receive remaining money (change), the change may be taken away by a stranger, which may cause damage to the user.
To cope with the problem, there is a known technique that performs authentication to identify users of the image forming apparatus, allows login for an user on a condition that the user is approved as a legitimate user, and if there is remaining money at the time of logging out, the charging apparatus avoids returning the remaining money, stores the un-returned remaining money as remaining money information for the legitimate user, and allows the legitimate user to use the remaining money at the next login.